"Sofa War" aka Lockdown Tips

A webinar summary from Naturopath and Kinesiology Expert Marianna Huszti

I recently attended a webinar that was held by my dear friend who is an amazing naturopath and kinesiologist and I wanted to share some key takeaways with you that might help you navigate during this newly formed normality.

First of all, she was talking about the fact that as human beings are designed to sustain a new situation for about 6-8 weeks. Due to our programming we are encouraged to form a community and to find ways to feel togetherness. This is how we feel safe. In the current isolated circumstances, it is hard to feel safe or part of a community.

After week 8 the psychology starts to change and we start looking for ways to break-out of this forced isolation.

There are 3 key emotions that we more and like feel right now:

1. Fear

2. Anxiety

3. And Grief

Fear or loss of something or somebody, will appear in the brain, and the brain will connect to death and grief. To feel connected to death is completely normal in such a situation because we start grieving over the past years that we have been through.

Anxiety might bring about panic attacks, sweating and anxious thoughts.

Importance of Being Present

We need to remind ourselves how important it is to be present. Our system does not really feel comfortable with being in the present moment because it requires us to take responsibilities. Those who are less conscious and their Ego is much more active, they might shift the responsibility to someone else’s.

Doing what you need to do is ENOUGH

During this highly challenging period we must remember that each and every one of us have their own responsibilities and tasks. So for example if you are a mum, your biggest task is to be a mum and support your children and your partner. If you are owning a business your main task is to keep your business afloat. If you are working for the front line your main job is to do your best in order to save lives. The important thing is that whatever situation you are in at, you should not be feeling bad if you are JUST doing the bear minimum of what you supposed to be doing. You do not need to, all of a sudden, be a perfect human machine, that cooks, cleans, looks after the children, is happy all the time, trains every day and runs a successful business.

“Sofa-war”

Remember , that for the mind, the current situation feels just as threatening as living in the time of war. My friend described this as a “sofa war” because our mind cannot tell the difference whether it is a real war or not. Therefore we are going through similar emotions and ways of thinking as we would experience a war.

Parenting

This next takeaway is mainly for people who have children. Every parent should talk to their children like adults because they understand the vibration of your words even if they are not quite sure about what’s happening around them. The best you can do is to explain to your children that sometimes, like now, we are experiencing unexpected situation and sometimes no one really knows what to do about it. We just have to do our best to go by.

Belief system

The current situation has completely knocked down our foundational belief system. Therefore, we have to decide what we are believing in and who we are listening to. It is important to stick to these rules so that we can strengthen our faith. At the beginning of the lockdown I have decided that I use the time to work on my mindset and to create an online hub that can serve many in the future. I disconnected from anything else that did not support this decision. I even reduced the amount of time I was listening to the news. I managed to create a sanctuary for my mental and physical state. Being in a state of fear can teach us how to fight in a certain situation however if we are spending the majority of our time in fear, it will limit us in the long term.

Emotions

All our decisions are based on emotions. Our brain has a reference to the majority of the emotions that we are experiencing. However there is no relevance in the mind to any of the current experiences because these are all new. Therefore, the best thing to do is to understand how we feel. Become aware of our emotions. Get to know ourselves and how we are feeling. What emotions are playing out in our body’s. She also highlighted that we are colourful when it comes to emotions and instead of ignoring or pushing our emotions away, why do not we spend time on understanding them and playing with them. Every emotion is valid and when we voice our emotions we can bring them into light and understand how to deal with them. A simple daily exercise of taking some time to think of how I am feeling right now can help creating a more nourishing relationship with our emotions and reactions. It can take about 2-3 weeks of daily practice to get to know why you are feeling what you are feeling in certain situations. For example, if you are fearful maybe take a moment to start thinking what feelings and thoughts are coming up when you are afraid of something? Where does that lead you? How can you work with that? How can you change that? When we are more aware of our emotions we can start practicing acceptance.

Accept everything that you are thinking, feeling and everything that you cannot control. Acceptance means that you surrender to the present moment.

These are some of the key points that my friend highlighted along the fact how important is to keep our body nourished with vitamin C and D, natural sunlight, quality sleep, reduced sugar and all the micro nutrients and minerals. We all have different ways of coping and it is ok to talk about it.